{"id":104862,"date":"2026-09-20T03:00:49","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T07:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=104862"},"modified":"2026-09-18T12:27:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T16:27:00","slug":"there-are-wedding-gifts-and-there-are-wedding-gifts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/there-are-wedding-gifts-and-there-are-wedding-gifts\/","title":{"rendered":"There are wedding gifts and there are wedding gifts<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gift-giving has been a thing since caveman days, they say, but sometimes gifts carry strings along with them that are impossible to ignore, or as The Grim Historian<\/em><\/a> puts it, “never let a mobster pay for your wedding”:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Nothing says “just a wedding gift” like the benefactor whose role stayed secret until ProPublica<\/em> had to put an arrow over his head.
Photo: Laura Gordon Photography via Instagram; annotation\/source: ProPublica<\/em>.<\/p><\/div>\n

My Grandma Ella had a rule about gifts, usually delivered while waving a wooden spoon over a white apron so stippled with tomato sauce it could have been entered into evidence.<\/p>\n

She would say, “Never accept gifts. That’s how a rich man turns you into a beggar.”<\/p>\n

That may sound cynical, but no Italian survives a lifetime of weddings, funerals, Sunday dinners, and relatives saying “forget about it” without learning that generosity has a very long memory.<\/p>\n

A gift creates an imbalance. You give me something. Now I am indebted to you. Sure, you may insist it is “just a gift.” But I have seen enough crisp white envelopes exchange hands to know there are gifts, and then there are … gifts<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Say I give you a hundred dollars and tomorrow you hand me a hundred dollars back, congratulations…we have invented banking. Or say you sign up for my breathtakingly grim history newsletter<\/a>. I have provided you a service in exchange for your 5 ducats, but we are all clear on the bargain.<\/p>\n

But suppose I give you something you can’t return. Not tomorrow. Not next year. Now the books stay open. And a man who keeps your books open is not your friend. He owns a piece of you.<\/p>\n

Which brings us to Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding and who owns him.<\/p>\n

ProPublica<\/em> reporters<\/a> Justin Elliott, Brett Murphy, Joshua Kaplan and Alex Mierjeski reported this week that Umar Kremlev \u2014 a Russian businessman closely associated with Vladimir Putin \u2014 gifted Trump Jr. and Bettina Trump quite the wedding shindig in the Bahamas.<\/p>\n

According to records and interviews ProPublica reviewed, Kremlev paid to rent a private island, covered an elaborate fireworks show, and had his team help organize the festivities. There were helicopters, seaplanes, oceanfront villas, and a five-tier funfetti cake flown in from Florida. So not exactly the crystal punch bowl from Aunt Linda.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, after ProPublica published its story, the newlyweds fessed up. Yes, Don Jr. and Bettina Trump have a wealthy Russian benefactor (sorry, “friend”) granting party favors. Then they made a statement that would have my Italian grandmother shaking her mano fica<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“Friendship doesn’t require a political motive. Generosity doesn’t automatically come with an agenda. And sometimes a wedding gift is simply a wedding gift.”<\/p>\n

Just a gift.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gift-giving has been a thing since caveman days, they say, but sometimes gifts carry strings along with them that are impossible to ignore, or as The Grim Historian puts it, “never let a mobster pay for your wedding”: My Grandma Ella had a rule about gifts, usually delivered while waving a wooden spoon over a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[28,53,1119,13],"tags":[363,1037,1086,112,671],"class_list":["post-104862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-politics","category-russia","category-usa","tag-corruption","tag-donaldtrump","tag-marriage","tag-organizedcrime","tag-vladimirputin"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-rhk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104862"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104864,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104862\/revisions\/104864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}